Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  “I’m going to take a taxi the rest of the way,” he said, as he began to climb in.

  “Professor, when will I be able to see you again?”

  “Next week. Call me. Say it’s Sat from Q University. I’ll have my assistant put you through.”

  The way he said it was a bit haughty, but I didn’t mind. I was happy. Yoshizaki had recognized my talent, my superiority. What a fortunate chance meeting ours had been.

  Once I made the crest of the hill on Dogenzaka Avenue, I turned to look back toward Shibuya Station. The road rose in a gentle curve. It was past midnight and a breeze had come up, fairly strong for October. It ruffled the hem of my Burberry coat. My armor during the day was a flowing cape; at night it became Superman’s cape. By day a businesswoman; by night a whore. Inside my cape was an attractive woman’s body. I was capable of using both my brains and my body to make money. Ha!

  The taillights of a taxi winked at me between the trees along the avenue as it slowly made its progress up the hill. A little faster and I would catch it, I thought. Tonight I looked beautiful, full of life. I turned down a narrow street lined with small shops. Perhaps I’d run across someone I know. Tonight of all nights I wanted to give the people at the firm a glimpse of my other self.

  “You look like you’re having a good time.”

  A businessman who appeared to be in his fifties called out to me, squinting as if into a dazzling light. His suit was gray and his dust-covered shoes were worn and shapeless. His suit jacket was open and the sleeve was being tugged down his arm by the strap of the heavy black shoulder bag he was lugging. I could see a men’s magazine stuffed inside the bag. His hair was mostly white and his face was gray and discolored as if he suffered from some kind of liver disease. He looked like the kind of man who’d spread out the pages of a sports paper on a crowded train, oblivious to the discomfort of others; the kind of man always short of cash. Definitely not the type who’d have a job at a prestigious firm like mine. I smiled at him sweetly. Few men ever called out to me in the streets, even when I addressed them first.

  “Are you on your way home?” he asked, somewhat timidly. His voice bore a trace of some kind of accent. Clearly he wasn’t from the city.

  I nodded. “Yes, I am.”

  “Well, would you like to stop off for a cup of tea with me or something?”

  He clearly wasn’t interested in food or even booze. What were his intentions? I wondered. Was he trying to pick me up? Had he figured out I was a prostitute?

  “That would be nice.”

  I’ve got another customer! I felt my heart tighten with excitement. And to have found him so soon on the heels of Yoshizaki. I had to be careful not to lose him; this was my lucky night.

  The man looked down nervously. He wasn’t used to women. I could tell that he was afraid of what was going to transpire and I reverted back to my former self. When I first entered the water trade—you know, prostitution—it was the same for me. I didn’t really understand what men would want and I was full of anxiety. But now I knew. No, that’s not true. I still don’t know. Perplexed myself, I put my hand on the man’s arm. He wasn’t as pleased with my gesture as Yoshizaki had been and he shrank back instinctively. The hawker in front of the cabaret looked at me and laughed. Looks like you’ve snagged yourself an easy mark there, haven’t you, girlie? You bet I have, I thought, as I gazed back at the hawker, my confidence soaring. I’m having fun tonight.

  “Where do you want to go?” the man said.

  “What about a hotel?”

  The man was startled by my directness. “I don’t know. I don’t have that much money. I just thought I’d like to sit and talk with a woman, that’s all. And then you walked past. I didn’t know you were that kind of woman.”

  “Well, how much can you pay?”

  Embarrassed, the man answered in a small, timid voice.

  “Well, if I have to pay the hotel costs, probably around fifteen thousand yen.”

  “We can find a cheap hotel. Some only charge three thousand yen. And I’ll charge you fifteen thousand yen.”

  “In that case, I think I can manage….”

  When I saw him nod, I began to head in the direction of a hotel. The man followed. His right shoulder dropped slightly under the weight of the bag he was carting. He really was a slob. A shabby excuse for a man. But he had called out to me, so I had to treat him like gold.

  I turned back and asked, “How old are you, mister?”

  “I’m fifty-seven.”

  “You look younger. I thought you were probably around fifty.”

  Yoshizaki would have appreciated the compliment. But this man just frowned. Before long we made it to the hotel. It was a love hotel near Shinsen Station, just on the border of Murayama-ch. When I pointed it out to the man, he couldn’t hide his discomfort. I suppose he was regretting his decision to come with me. I glanced at him warily. What if he tried to back out now? I’d need to think of something to keep him, I told myself, surprised at my own temerity. I was used to the agency making all the arrangements.

  When we got to the entrance of the hotel, the man fished out his wallet. I glanced inside and saw that he really did only have two ¥10,000 bills.

  “Don’t worry about it now. You pay later.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know.”

  The man slowly slipped his puny wallet back in his pocket. Looks like he’d never come to a love hotel before either. I was going to have to come up with a way to make him one of my regulars. He wasn’t an ideal customer, but if I could get men like him and Yoshizaki to patronize me regularly, I wouldn’t need to depend on the escort agency. That seemed like the only way out of the rut I was in, my only defense against the onslaught of old age. I picked the smallest room on the third floor and we squeezed into the tiny elevator. It looked as if it could hardly hold more than one person at a time.

  “Let’s talk for a while in the room, shall we? You might not realize it, but I work in the corporate world myself.”

  The man looked at me in surprise. I could tell he was feeling mortified at having been snagged by a prostitute. He was blushing.

  “No, I really do. Once we get to the room I’ll give you my business card and tell you all about it, okay?”

  “Thanks. That’d be nice.”

  The room was small and dirty. The double bed filled it from wall to wall. The paper shoji screen covering the window was torn in places, and the carpet was mottled with stains. The man dropped his shoulder bag to the floor and sighed. He’d removed his shoes and his socks smelled.

  “This for three thousand yen?”

  “It’s the best I could do. This is the cheapest place in Maruyama-ch.”

  “Thanks for trying.”

  “Would you like a beer?”

  The man smiled, and I pulled a bottle of beer out of the minibar. I poured the beer into two glasses and we toasted. The man drank in little sips, almost as if he were lapping it up.

  “What kind of work do you do, mister? Would you mind giving me your business card?”

  The man hesitated for a moment and then pulled a wrinkled card holder out of his suit pocket. “Wakao Arai, Deputy Chief of Operations, Chisen Gold Chemicals, Incorporated.” The company was based in Meguro, it said. I’d never heard of it. Arai stuck out a bony finger and pointed to the name of the company. “We sell chemicals wholesale. The firm is based in Toyama Prefecture, so I doubt you’ve heard of it.”

  I handed him my business card with a self-important flourish. A look of shock washed over Arai’s face.

  “I’m sorry if it’s rude for me to ask, but why do you do this sort of thing if you have such a good job?”

  “Why, you wonder?” I gulped down my beer. “At work nobody pays any attention to me.”

  I’d let slip a bit of my true feelings. It was only until I was thirty that I worked with such zeal. When I turned twenty-nine I was sent to a separate research facility. My rival Yamamoto worked only for four years and then quit to get married.
That left only four of the women who’d originally entered the firm with me. One was in advertising. Another in general affairs, and the other two in engineering. They were responsible for architectural planning. When I turned thirty-three, they finally brought me back to the research office. But there wasn’t a single interesting person there anymore. All the men I had entered the firm with had long since been promoted to higher positions in the inner administration, where women would never be accepted. The younger female office assistants clearly didn’t like me. University women who had entered the firm after me were working less and getting ahead. In short, I had slipped off the fast track. I had clearly been shifted from the winners to the losers. Why would that be? Because I was no longer young. And I was a woman. I was doing a lousy job aging and I could no longer build a solid career.

  “It’s really gotten to me. I feel like I want to get revenge.”

  “Revenge? On who?” Arai looked up at the ceiling. “I suppose everyone feels like that from time to time. We all want revenge. We’ve all been hurt one way or another. But the best thing to do is keep on going as if none of it matters.”

  Well, I didn’t agree. I was going to get revenge. I was going to humiliate my firm, scorn my mother’s pretentiousness, and soil my sister’s honor. I was even going to hurt myself. I who had been born a woman, who was unable to live successfully as a woman, whose greatest achievement in life was getting into Q High School for Young Women. It had been all downhill since. That was it—that was why I was doing what I did, why I turned to prostitution. When it finally struck me, I started to laugh.

  “Mr. Arai, I’d like to keep talking about this, so it’d be great if we could get together again. Fifteen thousand yen will be fine. We can meet here and drink beer and talk. How about that? I’m quite good at economics, you know, and I’ll spring for beer and the snacks and bring them along.”

  When he heard me make my request in all earnestness, desire flashed across Arai’s eyes. It was the first sign I’d had all evening. Men are weird. They have to think they’re the ones in control.

  • 4 •

  OCTOBER 4

  SHIBUYA: E (?), ¥15,000

  Today I napped on the table in the empty conference room all morning long. My back was killing me, lying on the table, but I ignored it. I’d spent last night until about eleven-thirty cooped up in the office of the hotel escort agency, and I was the only one not to be called. Not once.

  “What’s this? You picked a fine place for a nap!” A man’s voice startled me and I snapped to, swinging my legs over the table. It was Kabano, the man who had told me that my father had been kind to him when he first joined the firm. Kabano had risen higher in the firm than I had predicted. He’d been promoted from division manager of general affairs and was now an executive officer. At our firm we almost never saw the executives. They were much too exalted, with offices on the top floors. They even had an elevator that only they could use, and they were driven to and from the building in private company cars.

  Kabano wasn’t particularly talented, but he was affable and had no enemies to speak of, and that was enough to propel him up the ladder to success. That was one aspect of the company structure I just could not understand.

  “I heard snoring so I peeked in, and lo and behold there was a woman fast asleep. Not at all what I expected!”

  “I’m sorry. I have a headache.”

  I climbed slowly down from the table and slipped into the shoes I had left on the carpet. I couldn’t suppress a tiny yawn. Kabano looked me over with an expression of displeasure. That pissed me off. What’s your problem? I wanted to ask. You think just because you’re some high-and-mighty executive you can come in here and lord it over me? You old fart. You have some nerve waking me up!

  “If you have a headache, you should go to the infirmary. That’s what it’s there for, you know. Miss Sat, are you sure you’re all right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I combed my fingers through my long hair. It was tangled and too messy to be easily smoothed without a proper brushing. But what on earth was he staring at? Kabano finally averted his eyes.

  “Don’t you know? You’re awfully thin. Why, you’re practically skin and bones. You’re much thinner than you were when you were young; I almost didn’t recognize you just now.”

  So I’m thin, so what’s wrong with that? Men like women to be thin and have long hair; isn’t that practically a given? I’m five feet five inches tall and I weigh a hundred pounds. I’d say that’s just about perfect. For breakfast I eat a gymnema tablet. For lunch I go to the company cafeteria in the basement and buy a prepared lunch, mostly seaweed salad. Sometimes I just skip lunch, and I hardly ever eat the white rice that comes with it. I will eat the vegetable tempura, though. At any rate, anytime I see a fat woman it revolts me. I think she must be stupid to look like that.

  “If I put on weight my clothes won’t look right anymore.”

  “Concerned with clothes, is it? I’m sure that’s an issue for a young woman, but…Miss Sat, I really think you ought to see a doctor. I’m worried that there may be something seriously wrong with your health. Are you working too much?”

  Am I working too much? Well, yeah, maybe at night! A smile quickly overtook my lips.

  “I’m not working all that hard. It’s just that last night was a bit of a drought.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kabano asked, alarm spreading over his face. Whoops, things are getting tangled up in my mind. This old fart’s an executive here. I need to revert back to my daytime self—fast. I’m not handling my double life too well today.

  “Oh, nothing. I just meant that I haven’t had much leftover work to do, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’m sure the work here in the research office can be very intense. I recall someone remarking earlier that you wrote a report that received considerable praise.”

  “That was a long time ago. Conditions were a lot more positive then.”

  I was twenty-eight when I wrote that report: “Financial Investment in Construction and Real Estate: Creating New Myths” was the title. It won a prize from the Economic News Publishing House. That was the happiest period in my life. Japan was still floating on the Bubble Economy, the market for new construction was promising, and times were heady. There was a jerk who criticized my article, though, for lacking any clear strategic suggestions. I’ve never forgotten how bitter his remarks made me feel.

  “That’s not true. You still have a lot of potential.” Kabano suddenly looked over at me with a pained expression. “Miss Sat, your mother must be really very worried about you.”

  “My mother? What do you mean?”

  I pushed my index finger against my chin and tilted my head to the side. Ever since Professor Yoshizaki admired this pose as looking particularly cute and young ladylike, I had been trying it out every chance I got. Professor Yoshizaki seemed to like women who acted like well-bred young ladies.

  “What I mean is your mother might be worried that you’re not well, and you’re all she’s got.”

  Well, you’ve got that right. I’m her cash cow. No way she wants to lose me. If I stop pulling in money, she won’t know what to do. But what would I do? Suddenly I felt a stab of fear. What was going to happen as I grew older? If I got fired from the firm and wasn’t able to keep up my night work, I’d lose all my sources of income. If that happened, you can be sure my mother would turn me out of the house.

  “I understand. I’ll try to be more dependable.”

  When he saw the change that swept over me, the seriousness with which I listened to his suggestion, Kabano nodded with approval.

  “We’ll just keep what happened today between the two of us, so don’t worry about it. I’m glad I was the one who found you; I’m not often over this way, you know. But I have to say, and I know this may seem harsh, that you’ve really changed. You look like you’ve got a few screws loose.”

  “What’s wrong with the way I look?”

 
; I tried out my pose again, tilting my head.

  “You wear too much makeup, for one thing. Hasn’t anyone told you that? I mean, some makeup is fine, but you’ve crossed the line. It’s not appropriate for the workplace. My advice may seem overly solicitous, but I really think you should consult a mental health counselor.”

  “A counselor?” I was so taken aback I nearly shouted. “Why do you say that?”

  I had been required to see a psychiatrist at the end of my second year in high school, on account of my eating disorder. They said my life was in danger and made all kinds of ridiculous predictions that made my mother cry and my father blow up with anger. It was ludicrous. But had they cured me? How about when I was twenty-nine? Hadn’t I been told the same thing then?

  The door to the conference room burst open and the secretary poked her head in. I guess she’d heard me shouting. She stared at me in shock.

  “Mr. Kabano, is that you? It’s past time now.”

  “Well, then, I’d best be on my way.”

  Kabano rushed out of the conference room. The secretary glared at me suspiciously. What are you looking at, bitch? You don’t know what it’s like to run freely through the night, do you? Bet you’ve never had a man want you. Whoa, I’ve already reverted to my whore self.

  When I got back to the research office, the manager looked at me fixedly. “Sat, I’d like to see you for a moment.” What now, another sermon? Utterly disgusted, I headed to the manager’s desk. He looked up from his computer screen and swiveled in his chair to look at me when I came over.

  “You know, it’s okay for you to step away from your desk. But you have to be careful not to be gone so long.”

  “I’m sorry. I have a bad headache.” I glanced at Kamei out of the corner of my eye. She was her usual gaudy self. Today she was wearing a red T-shirt with black pants. She had her hair pulled back and she’d buried her face in the documents she was reading, the spitting image of a proper career woman. God, I hated her. She had perfected the charade exquisitely.

  “Sat, are you listening?”

  The office manager raised his voice in irritation. Everyone in the office turned to stare at me. Kamei glanced over at me and met my gaze before casually looking away.